Thursday, April 27, 2017

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “Scopophilia” by Simon
Constam.Constam wrote poetry as a
young man but gave it up after just a few years, put off by the growing
influence of academia.An admirer
of Rimbaud and Beckett as a teenager, Constam hitchhiked around the world at
eighteen, which he credits as probably his most formative experience. He worked
for a publisher for a couple of years and then owned a small bookstore in
British Columbia for a long stretch.

One day in his middle fifties,
he retrieved the poems he had composed in his youth, finding that he could not
leave poetry behind him. He now has a few poems published in online magazines
and is looking for a home for a book of poetry as well as a chapbook.He has a small sales consulting
business in Toronto.

Scopophilia

Simon Constam

I enjoy within myself a
mixum-gatherum

of shame, embarrassment and
curiosity.

Must I use the word frisson?

It makes me feel so helpless.

Well, I suppose I don’t so
much see what is before me as I,

wanting more of what I already
have, attach myself to it.

I don’t accept just anything.

I accept whatever can be made
into what I need from it.

I cannot work with a cold
night and a colder wind, for example.

I don’t know why. Or a
forest. Or a lake. Or nature generally.

With some exceptions – Lorca’s
moon.

But certain moments in history
repeated endlessly,

some of them are fine.
Most fly right past me.

I can make something out of
people hating.

I can easily modify that to
suit my purposes.

I can do little with ambition
and wealth.

Cities, modern, the space-age
brain…..

I try to make them malleable.

But if the choice is mine …..

A village built on a winding
river,

streets climbing up steeply
from the water’s edge,

narrow streets, women with
ancient brooms

and young women who have lived
too long in a place with too few men.

And she ought to be a little
older

and reluctant in a brazen sort
of way.

For sex I’ll take my chances
with pathological shyness

alternating with
ride-em-cowgirl.

And lots of dark, dark hair.
Truant kids peeking in through windows.

Old men who talk as if they
will not live again.

And for people arriving at the
village square café,

I prefer that two tables be
pushed together

for several generations of a
family among them those

that simply know how things
really work and are anxious to get on with it,

offending those who prize the
gathering alone

happy in their ignorance of
the old ways.

For comestibles I prefer the
whole beast, every last little bit of it

but that comes later
tonight. For libation, the blood they think is wine.

And there is something maudlin
too - brothers who have good reason to

hate each other and do, and
then don’t, and then do again.

I do like to watch history
poking its head

through the curtains of
individual lives.

And for what ails me, I prefer
the simple mechanism of a man dying

who doesn’t deserve to die,
has worked too hard, cared too much,

for his family. But only if he
has a secret life

that destroys my respect for
him.

For meaning I much prefer it
when the writer has no idea at all what the piece is about

and you have to choose more
than just your own ending.

Poet’s Notes:Drawing stories that, as often
as not, don’t fit what I see but fit my perspective, is what I find myself
doing. I was outside one night last winter, looking up at a sky where the city
lights obscured the stars, feeling a little anguished at both wanting and not
wanting to write something about the disappearance of the ancient night.
Bit by bit, what I could use and what I couldn’t began to trouble me.

I grew up among people who didn’t
spend much time outside, didn’t camp or hike or do anything outdoors.So I can’t often for myself find a
connection with the natural world. I find intensity instead in how we behave
with one another. That is what I make and re-make in the world for
myself.

Editor’s Notes:What beautiful language
Simon uses here! I particularly enjoy his word choices for the first two
stanzas.

His choice of using only one line
for the stanza that refers to "Lorca's moon" is nicely done.
The white space created by the absence of the expected second line is filled by
reference to and thoughts of "Ballad of the Moon Moon"

The turn is perfectly executed
in the tenth stanza. The stanzas that follow are filled with beautiful
imagery and thought-provoking subtle references to biblical history (the
stories of Joseph, and of Jacob and Esau). These stories are evoked and
woven into the narrative in a masterful way.

The final stanza makes for a
"wow" finish. It invites the reader to re-read the poem to look
for different meanings and interpretations.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “Down The Rabbit
Hole” by Rie Sheridan Rose.Rose
has authored six chapbooks of poetry. In addition to several
previous appearances in Songs of Eretzhttp://eretzsongs.blogspot.com/search?q=rie+sheridan+rose, Rose’s poems have
been published in: Penumbra, Illumen, The
Voices Project, and Wolf Willow Magazine,
as well as three Di-Verse-City anthologies, the 2016 Texas Poetry Calendar, Speculative
Poets of Texas Vol. 1, Terror Train, Bones II, No Sight for the Saved, and Abandoned
Towers, and in numerous anthologies for Horrified Press. She
is also a lyricist, having provided the words for many of the songs on Don’t
Go Drinking with Hobbits by Marc Gunn.

Down The Rabbit Hole

Rie Sheridan Rose

When I was a child and first
met Alice

I thought her Adventures were
a travelogue.

I was sure the rabbit hole was
right outside the fence

and if I looked hard enough I
would fall

right through to Wonderland.

The Queen of Hearts would prostrate
herself

at my feet,

begging for forgiveness, and I—

being generous—

would cause her to rise

and put her to work

in the kitchen

with the Duchess.

I would clean up Wonderland.

It would be a great place
after I

took the Red Queen's crown.

That Jabberwocky would guard
my gate,

and the Walrus and the
Carpenter

would provide fresh fish.

But wishes weren't horses,

and I never found the rabbit
hole

no matter how hard I tried.

I never found the
Looking-Glass

that would permit me to step

into that mirrored madness.

But now,

as my eyes fade

and my memories blur…

I think that I will search
again.

Perhaps I was just looking in
the wrong spot.

The Hatter will welcome me

with a nice cuppa,

and I will stroke the Cheshire
Cat,

feeling at home at last.

Poet's Notes:Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
has always been near and dear to my heart. From earliest childhood, I was wont
to wander through the rabbit hole. This poem reflects the adult looking back at
the dreams of childhood and hoping to recapture that wonder.

Editor’s Note: What I enjoy most about
this piece is how Rie plays with time--the magic of childhood suddenly thrusts into
the soberness of adulthood and then to the childlike hopes of end-of-life
adulthood.

Poet's Notes:
This is a poem about King
Xau, the fictional hero of my epic fantasy The Sign of the Dragon. Xau spends most of his time doing what he believes is best for his kingdom:
meeting with his ministers, entertaining envoys, commanding his cavalry, etc.
But he prefers the company of his family, his guards, and his elderly cleaning
woman.

In writing the epic, I
tried to vary the point of view to present a broader perspective. This poem is
one of three from Tian's point of view. I also tried to balance the darker,
more serious moments with others where Xau has a chance to relax.More poems about King Xau may be found in
Songs of Eretz Poetry Review http://eretzsongs.blogspot.com/search?q=Xau and at http://www.thesignofthedragon.com.

Poet's Notes: Another of a series of poems inspired
by mobster movies. This one centers on a man either being betrayed or being
punished for his own betrayal. I left his back-story for the reader's
imagination and focused on his thoughts as the car heads for him, personifying
it as a beast that one can't hope to escape.

Poet’s Notes:A small town’s arms
embraced my childhood. In the 1960’s, unlocked doors welcomed neighbors and
children day or night. Outer space and rocketry fascinated the fathers who
lived on my street.Families
gathered together on patios, sprawled on furniture or lawn. We waited for
Sputnik satellite to curve over our backyards.I inherited the love of astronomy and the challenge of a new
age in space the same time my body changed. Discovery, first love, and the kiss
of a universe shaped the words of this poem.

Editor’s Note:I enjoy the special
moment preserved here and the peaceful tone. The romantic subtext is
exquisitely executed; the longing that summer love will last is easily felt.
The imagery here is as clear as a cloudless prairie sky.“Adolescence”
was a finalist in the 2017 Songs of Eretz Poetry Award Contest.

Comments
by Contest Judge Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, PhD: This
first line is wonderful, especially juxtaposed with the title. I also like how
the first stanza moves quickly to lying “in the meadow's open sea...” and all
the listening that follows. This poem is strongest where the poet aims for
specifics, such as tracking a satellite or noting the North Star. The ending is
compelling because of the combination of nothing and everything.

Poet’s Notes: “Introspection”came to me on the subway when I realized I had
never seen myself. It is as if the darkness of my mindscape is so profound that
I cannot raise my hand to see the fingers before my face. Of course, my self is
actually a non-extended, thinking thing, a res cogitans, but there is
some degree of sensation attached to my phenomenology, given that I can hear my
own thoughts in my mind right now, or picture them, and certainly I know the
feeling of thinking, and yet I can never see myself—my actual existence as an
individuated, thinking substance, my spiritual essence, the Cartesian ego.

The theme of darkness, of
depth, and of blindness aesthetically allow this poem a certain spiraling
descent, hastened by the short length, and the rhythm, to the existential
certainty of my selfhood paradoxically unified to a "faith" that
borrows the words of St. Paul, but which seems so fitting given that
this is truly knowledge of things unseen, or better still, unseeable. The poem
is compact, and involves no diversions to another theme.The Cartesian
fixation of the poem is made explicit with reference to the deceiving demon,
the malin genie, of the thought experiment culminating in the famous cogito
ergo sum.

Poet's Notes: When
I left for college I began a regular postal correspondence with my
grandmother, one of the few people in my life not connected on email. It
was a great privilege to get to know my grandmother in that way, and our
correspondence inspired me to explore her biography further. She was a gracious
and meticulous host, some characteristics of which I suspect came about through
her work as a dietician and deployment to England during WWII. I was on the
other side of the country while she gradually excarnated. My parents were
visiting one evening when she drifted into wakefulness, looked up, and said,
"It's been fun," before drifting off again. She had a stroke that
night.

Animal Behavior Lowell Jaeger "Guest" Ink on Paper By J. Artemus Gordon She’d sputtered her droppings on the living ro...

DONATIONS

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is presented as free for viewing and open to the public but is NOT free to produce. The suggested donation for regular visitors to our site is twelve dollars per year. If you cannot afford twelve dollars per year, we will be happy to accept any lesser amount. If you are so down on your luck that you cannot afford to make a donation at all, then enjoy us for free--we hope your luck changes soon. Use PayPal to make your donation with Donations@SongsOfEretz.com as the receiving address.